Emmett Till

Emmett Till (25 July 1941-28 August 1955) was an African-American boy from Chicago, Illinois who was lynched for flirting with a white woman in Mississippi. The murder of the fourteen-year-old youth led to increased attention being drawn to the plight of African-Americans in the American South and led to the growth of the Civil Rights movement.

Biography
Emmett Till was born in Chicago, Illinois on 25 July 1941, the son of Louis Till and Mamie Carthan. His father, a US Army soldier, was executed by hanging on 2 July 1945 after being found guilty of raping and murdering an Italian woman in Civitavecchia. Till and his mother moved to Detroit, Michigan in 1951, but he preferred to live in Chicago, so he headed to live with his grandmother there; his mother and stepfather would later rejoin him there. Till was known for being muscular, stocky, a prankster with his friends, and a happy child, and he wanted to visit the Mississippi Delta to see where his grandparents lived.

Murder
On 21 August 1955, Emmett Till arrived in Money, Mississippi, and he decided to buy some candy with his cousin and some friends. Till entered the store while whistling, as whistling helped him calm his stuttering; a local white woman, the 21-year-old woman Carolyn Bryant, believed that he was wolf-whistling at her. Till was given a dare to speak to her by his friends, and he said, "Bye, baby" as he left the store. Carolyn's husband Roy Bryant returned from a fishing trip on 27 August, and Carolyn told Roy that Till had grabbed her. Bryant and a friend of his headed to Till's grandmother's house, and they told Till to get dressed or be shot. They abducted Till and pistol-whipped him, dislodged an eye from its socket, beat him on his back and hips, shot him above the right ear, and fastened a fan blade to his neck with barbed wire. Till's disfigured body was found three days later, and he received an open-casket burial at his aunt's insistence. The Chicago Defender picture of the funeral made international news and drew attention to the plight of African-Americans in the American South. His killers were let off scot-free, being acquitted of murder and kidnapping by an all-white jury.